Fic: Black and Blue (Clark/Bruce) , PG ( 5/?)
Series: Black & Blue (Part 5a/?)
Table of Contents
Category: Alternate Universe, Pre-Slash
Universe: DCU/Smallville/Batman Begins
Rating: PG for now
Pairing: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Summary: The friendship before they donned the capes.
Disclaimer: DC and Millar/Gough own them and say this didn’t happen…I choose not to believe them.
Notes: An AU of “When Clark met Bruce” by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.
“Hey, Clark! Clark, wait up!”
Clark stopped on the steps of Smallville Elementary as he heard the unmistakable voice of his best friend calling out to him. “Hey, Pete.”
“What’s the hurry? You’re walking like you set off a stink bomb in the girl’s bathroom,” Pete chuckled.
“No, that was you last year,” Clark smirked, then laughed as Pete’s face went wistful in memory.
“Whatever,” Pete replied, “what’s the rush anyway? It’s the last day of school! You wanna come over and play Street Fighter? You know Derrick likes you, he’ll let us play in his room.”
Clark always liked Pete’s older brothers, Derrick being the one that was nicest to him. It probably had to do with how Clark stood up for Pete all those years ago. But Clark didn’t have time to play that afternoon.
“I can’t,” Clark said with genuine regret though there was an undercurrent of excitement in his voice. “Bruce’s plane comes into Metropolis tomorrow, and mom needs me to help her get my room ready.”
At this, Pete’s face fell, though Clark was so thrilled that he hadn’t noticed his friend’s discomfort. Ever since Clark found out that his new rich friend was going to spend an entire summer in Smallville, it was all Pete heard whenever he and Clark, rare as it was lately, hung out together.
“…clear out some of my drawers to make room for his stuff,” Clark was still talking, though Pete was only half listening. “You wanna come with us to the airport? We’re gonna spend the day in Metropolis before coming back. We can probably talk her into letting us go to that big video game store even if we can’t buy anything. But they let you play some of the games, so that would be cool. So wanna come?”
Clark’s face was so animated that it just made Pete feel worse. He knew that Clark and that Bruce kid wrote letters back and forth, and that was fine. At least it was until the rich snob decided to take over.
“Nah, we’re going over to my uncle’s house tomorrow to watch the game. You know we do that every year. It’s just too bad you’re gonna be stuck in the Met while we’re having fun.”
Clark shrugged half-heartedly, almost as if he didn’t agree that Pete’s uncle’s house wasn’t as fun as being in Metropolis with some rich stiff. Who sucked at baseball, no less.
“Maybe me and Bruce could come over one day.” Me and Bruce. Since when were they ‘me and Bruce’?
“Yeah, sure man.” Pete said dejectedly before rushing ahead to get on the bus.
Clark watched his friend take a seat in one of the middle rows next to Lana Lang, leaving him to sit in the back next to a third grader with two missing front teeth. Lana smiled as Clark passed, and normally this would have made Clark turn beat red, but he was distracted by the icy glare that Pete was categorically not throwing in his direction. What was his problem anyway?
Clark had only been to Metropolis once that he could remember. His mom had told him that they traveled to the big city when they first adopted him, but he was just a toddler and couldn’t be expected to remember something that happened all those years ago. His first true time was when he was seven and the Rosses invited him and his dad to a Metropolis Sharks game. Their seats were in the nosebleed section, Jonathan’s shoes kept getting stuck to the floor, and whenever the Sharks scored, the burly man sitting in front of Clark kept jumping up and down obstructing Clark’s view. Clark had eventually wound up on Jonathan’s shoulders for the rest of the game. It was the best time he’d had.
Clark continued to look out of the airport windows toward the Metropolis skyline off in the distance. The drive into the city had captured Clark’s fancy as he peered out at the big city with its millions of citizens milling about, the noise of the elevated train overhead, and its looming skyscrapers littering the skyline. Even from where they stood in the airport, Clark could make out a spinning golden orb on the top of one of the tall buildings. Only one other building right behind it was taller with its L shaped structure casting a shadow over the cityscape. It was all very fascinating to Clark, so much so that Martha had to get his attention away from the windows. The announcement over the P.A. had signaled the arrival of the flight from Gotham City.
Bruce had managed to hold in his elation all throughout dinner when Alfred suggested an entire summer vacation in Smallville. But when Bruce made it to his room afterwards, all bets were off. He had wanted to call Clark right away to see if he knew about this, but decided that it would be better if he wrote a letter instead. There was something about having tangible proof of that this was real, and hopefully getting the same in return from Clark.
After apparently months of secret planning on the adults’ part (as Bruce eventually discovered), Bruce was set to fly into Metropolis where the Kents would pick him up and they would drive back to Smallville after spending a few hours in the city. Bruce did not really care too much about sightseeing in Metropolis, being a city boy himself and not seeing the big fuss, but Clark was so evidently hyped up about it, judging from his letters and the few phone calls they had made to each other, that Bruce found himself getting anxious as well.
Bruce peered out of the window of the airplane once again. The tapping of his fingers on the armrest and the sound of constantly shifting fabric caught the attention of the older woman sitting next to him. He felt her gaze and immediately stopped his fidgeting with an apologetic expression on his face. The woman shook her head with amusement and Bruce settled back into his seat.
“You must be very excited,” the woman smirked.
“No, I’m just…I don’t like planes that much,” Bruce lied. Bruce had loved planes ever since his father took him flying in one of the Wayne Technology’s private jets. His father was not involved in the long-running family business-he opted to go into medicine instead-but that did not mean he couldn’t enjoy certain perks of his family’s fortune.
The woman smiled again in understanding. “Well, we’re almost there, so you can relax.”
Bruce nodded although he barely heard the other woman’s words. The Metropolis skyline came into view as the plane descended. Bruce remembered the last time he had been to Metropolis, only then he was with Tommy and his father. Somehow even the fun that he knew he’d had on that trip paled in comparison to his anticipation right then.
The plane landed without a hitch, and then Bruce was steered off of the plane along with the other passengers. Bruce didn’t know what to expect, exactly, when he set foot into the airport gate, but suddenly hearing his name shouted and then having four and a half feet of flannel-covered farmboy was the last thing on his list. Bruce tried to steady himself with a hand to his attackers back when he saw Mrs. Kent shaking her head while trying to stifle her giggling.
“Clark,” she chided, and just as quickly as it came, the warm human vise was gone so that Bruce was able to look into Clark’s smiling face.
“Sorry,” Clark winced, and right on cue his skin flushed violently. Bruce idly wondered whether Clark would eventually explode from all the blushing.
“You just surprised me, is all,” Bruce responded diplomatically. “Let’s try this,” he said sticking out his hand towards Clark. Immediately Clark reacted and the two boys executed their super secret handshake flawlessly, to which Clark gave a whoop of approval that Bruce had remembered and had been practicing.
“Wicked!” Clark exclaimed, and Bruce smirked as usual at Clark’s attempts at mimicking his Gotham accent. “Hey, we have to get your bags. Mom is taking us all over the city. Have you ever been to the Emperor Building? I know you’ve been here before, but I didn’t know if you’d ever been there. I wanted to check out the Luthor Corp Towers, but mom said we wouldn’t have that much time. But I do know that-”
Bruce, as usual, let Clark ramble on without interruption as they left the airport with Bruce’s bags in tow. Clark didn’t seem to run out of breath or something to talk about. It was how Bruce imagined Clark speaking as he read the letters, and since Bruce wasn’t much of a talker, he welcomed Clark’s chatter-he had gotten used to it during their phone conversations and now found it amusing, yet comfortably so.
By four o’clock, the three of them were heading to Smallville in the Kent’s pick up. Martha had endured four hours of the boys dragging her to this landmark building and that park and, ooh! A comic book store, before they stopped for a late lunch at the best pizzeria in Kansas-or so the sign in the window proclaimed.
Bruce had begun talking more, and finally she was able to witness the boys interact in a live version of what their letters must have been like. Clark had always been a happy and friendly child, but Martha knew that she and Jonathan put a lot of necessary pressure for Clark to hide parts of himself for his own safety. And it pained her to see, as he practically vibrated around Bruce, that in hiding parts of himself from other people, that he had also inadvertently hid parts of himself from…himself. Even with Pete, she’d never seen Clark so restless and genuinely excited. Perhaps being able to express himself as much as he could in their correspondence opened up a part of her son that even he hadn’t known was there. Martha suddenly felt her eyes sting at the thought and hastily shook of the feeling and just enjoyed listening to the boys banter.
“No way! Leonardo would wipe the floor with Rafael!”
“Oh, are you kidding me? Aside from the practicality of his psi-blades and that their function is to act against a katana, Rafael is still a superior fighter compared to the so-called leader.”
“Get real! Splinter made Leo the leader because he’s a great fighter and he doesn’t have a sucky attitude…hey, I finally get why you like him.”
“…Bite me, Clark.”
Martha opened her mouth to reprimand Bruce for his hurtful language, but she was cut off by the sound of Clark’s uproarious laughter filling the cab as if it were a private joke. She glanced at the boys and saw Bruce trying to maintain his scowl, but eventually Clark’s hysterics became contagious. She fought to not join in the giggle fest and had to remind herself to talk to Bruce about such language in her house. As soon as they got to the house.
Or maybe the next day.